Highlights

Euro Solar Tower in Dortmund

IBS produced the structural design for the freely rotating steel pyramid of the Euro Solar Tower. With 6th place in the state-wide competition of the Chamber of Engineers NRW for the most outstanding structures of the years 1995-2005, the project clearly established itself in the top-ten range, among well over 10,000 fellow engineers in NRW.

The building façade holds what was then the largest installed capacity of photovoltaic elements in Germany, possibly even in Europe. State building minister Dr Vesper inaugurated the structure in 1996 and underlined its ecological value combined with successful architecture, as well as its integration into the mixed-trade park that arose on a former industrial brownfield site in Dortmund-Defdahl and has since provided a livelihood for various craft businesses.

IBS was commissioned with the structural design because of its experience with three-dimensionally acting structural forms.

New International Airport, Athens

IBS produced almost the entire structural design for the single- and multi-chamber infrastructure ducts of the “New International Airport” in Athens. This large-scale project was realised in a construction period of only around 50 months. Greece relied on the expertise of German engineers.

The expertise demonstrated in Athens was subsequently transferred to airport projects in Germany: structural designs for the airports of Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Frankfurt-Hahn and further measures have since been carried out by IBS.

Infrastructure duct (ISK) in Speyer

A remarkable success: the state of Rhineland-Palatinate honoured the ISK in Speyer with the State Innovation Award 2005. IBS was entrusted with the optimisation calculations and thus with the entire structural design. Each section was optimised in terms of labour and materials to such an extent that a complete production process for one construction section was achieved every day.

The shaping was in a sense inspired by the more than 2,000-year-old water-conduit cross-sections of the Romans: the semicircular hood on a wall structure with haunched bases towards the invert gave the ISK its final form. The flat invert surface allows inspections and installations inside the duct; the structurally favourable form saves material for the given space requirement.

Despite the optimised overall form, accesses, crossing structures, house connections and core drillings can be realised at all points. The duct accommodates present and future supply lines. Recurring excavations in the road network under traffic are thus a thing of the past. The protection of power, gas and water lines is becoming increasingly important. The ISK already offers these possibilities today.

Arch bridge in Venice

As part of a study, IBS was commissioned with the structural design of a footbridge in Venice. The key data: a span of 48 m with an arch rise of only 6.65 m, allowing a low gradient ratio for use as a footbridge.

The structure of reinforced concrete and masonry was intended to come architecturally very close to the historical model. The difficult foundation conditions were solved with an abutment structure on bored piles. Internal-force determination and design were carried out using combined beam and shell elements on the 3-D system, including optimisation calculations.